[Legacy of Heroes] General New Player Advice (all playing just for the badges, please read bolded sections before commenting or rating the game 1/5 just for having energy)

So many comments are saying the same things over and over, I feel it would be nice to address them in such a way that isn’t bumped off the recent comments so quickly. In this post, I hope to make clear why some aspects of this game that annoy people work the way they do, and how new players can do well without constantly asking questions. The in-game tutorial is good at covering basic gameplay, but it is limited in its scope. Whole sections devoted just to people only here for badges only are designated in bold, if “tl;dr” is an issue otherwise.

On Energy:

This is the most-commonly hated part of the game, but it is present for a reason. No, that reason is not to force people to pay to be able to play whenever they want to, even though an option to do so is available. Rather, having high energy cost for missions is present to encourage a certain rate of flow through the game content. This game is designed to be played for months, not days. In fact, there are weekly updates and monthly additions to content.

For those just here for the badges, I am sorry that this game was not designed to tailor to your specific preferences, but that is the way it is. Energy will not be removed just so you can finish and leave faster. Instead, just play this game for a short time, leave, and come back when the energy has regenerated so you can continue playing.

For those here to enjoy the game itself and continue playing for an extended period of time even after getting the badges, there is much that you can do while waiting for energy to regenerate (if you insist on simply waiting, rather than go off and do something else when your energy is gone). You can talk to other people in chat, check out the game’s forum http://www.lohgame.com/forum/forum.php , work on modifying your deck, or duel (if you have duel tickets remaining for the day). And, if you enjoy this game enough, time spent waiting for energy can be spent on 5th Planet Games’ Clash of the Dragons, which is similar in mechanics but different in strategy and plot.

Why the current system of energy works: Energy is present to regulate flow through the game’s content. This is accomplished by having a set amount of energy regenerate per day and having a set number of battles to be won at certain energy costs before being able to progress, resulting in some amount of time being necessary to get from one issue to the next. If energy were removed, then people could complete the entire story, gain countless levels, and buy countless packs, all in a single sitting. To compensate and maintain the same rate of flow without energy, battles would have to be fought countless more times, level ups would take countless more experience, and packs would cost countless more bucks, all of which would make this game seem like even more of a grind than it already is. Consider other card games on Kong that either don’t have energy or have a very unrestricted energy system. All of them either allow you to progress through the entire game in a single sitting or are an agonizing grind to get any new cards.

The current energy system in this game is fair. Every level up only takes 2 “bars” of energy on average. You get a free energy refill on level up (so halfway to the next level up right there). You get a free energy drink (1/4 energy bar) every week, you get free energy drinks from events such as the mega brawl. And you get to duel many times per day at a very low energy cost each time. If you also consider things that you have to do in real life then energy doesn’t appear restrictive at all. Early on, when you don’t have a high energy max, it might, but remember that you do gain +5 max energy on every level up.

On PvP:

Along with energy, PvP appears to be the other major annoyance among people. PvP battles are matched up based on ranking, not level, which is why very low level players can be matched up against people level 100+. I can understand how this annoys people, but the system works better the longer you play. As you level up and get more powerful cards, you will be able to do better in PvP and start fighting people around your ability, as those of extremely high levels will remain much farther ahead in rank. As for me, at over 1000 duel points, I almost never find myself paired against anyone under level 100.

If you are just here for the badges, don’t bother with PvP.

If you are planning on remaining active in this game for a long time, use all your duel tickets every day anyway. Even losses give you 1 point, and you get them refilled to full for free every day, so there is no penalty for doing poorly.

On the Tutorial:

The first issue in this game is meant to be used as a tutorial. If you want to know what you are doing and how to play, please pay attention to the tutorial popups. In addition, please make sure to look at and read your cards so you know what they do: click on the card to view a larger version, read the effects, and read the clever flavor texts too if you’d like – do not turn on the “single click” option until you know what all your cards are and what they all do. If at any time you need more information, click on one of those “?” bubbles scattered around the screen. If you clicked on the “Hide all Tutorial Popups Forever” button… it does actually mean forever so you won’t be able to view any of them again.

On Other Useful Information:

1) For those just here for the badges: the fastest way to gain a wide variety of cards is to do nothing but play through issue 1 on normal over and over again, buying and opening Glory packs whenever you get enough bucks to do so. This is not as exciting as playing through the rest of the plot, but if you only want the badges, you wouldn’t care about that anyway.

2) No, it is not possible to “sell” cards. Yes, I realize that there are many cards that you likely consider useless and would want to get rid of. However, there will eventually be an update that allows large collections of cards to be exchanged for rarer cards.

3) No, packs do not cost both bucks and Legacy Coins. For the Honor and Glory packs, bucks and Legacy coins are listed in the purchase price because they can be bought with either bucks or Legacy Coins. Buy Glory packs with your bucks and save your Legacy Coins.

4) The difficulty between normal and crisis is extreme. New players should not even attempt anything on crisis difficulty. Also, the difficulty increase from one issue to the next is extreme too (though not nearly as much as between normal and crisis difficulty). You should play through issue 1 a few times before moving on to issue 2. Whenever you get stuck on an issue, go back and repeat the previous issue to try getting the bucks for packs to get better cards, and get the additional experience for level ups to get more skill points.

5) Skill points cannot be easily reset without paying, so be careful where you spend them.

6) The people who buy Legacy Coins will have a natural advantage over those who do not. However, this does not mean that they cannot be defeated once you become strong enough. If you remain active, you get a free bust every week (1 can be forged into 10 LC, and 4 can be forged into 50 LC, or one can be forged into a Draft pack). In addition, many “epic” rarity cards can be gained from brawl and mission drops/forges.

7) There are many different ideas on where to most effectively spend Legacy Coins. Some people will say to buy Draft packs when they are on sale for 15 LC. Others will say to buy Prestige packs during an epic+ promotion. Yet others will say to save up for any kind of “lunchbox” weekly promotion and buy a bunch of those. Some even buy energy refills (mainly for mega brawls, where you only have a short amount of time to get in many brawls within the time limit, and energy drinks are provided as rewards at the end anyway). Other options are available, but free players cannot afford to make use of many. Be sure to look up more information about whatever you plan on buying before spending your LC.

8) The mega brawl was only coincidently introduced at the same time this game became featured. It is not meant as a way for people who have only been here for days to gain anything worthwhile. However, you should attempt to enter at least 1, as just 1 mega brawl point will give you an energy drink, 8 skill points, and whatever the 1-point community rewards are (up to a draft pack and an epic card). If you can get into more though, with high-level people supporting you, forge drops for other brawl drops are present, which can give you copies of those cards long before you could get them normally. Another mega brawl is certain to appear again eventually though, so take the time until then to prepare.

Thank you very much. I am not here just for badges, but I did first notice the game when they put badges on it. I appreciate your nice intro. If other experienced players care to add to your comments I know it would help me and other new people out a lot.

This is very helpful information. I want to add to the conversation by sharing some points of frustration that I experience as a new player.

The first issue worked well as a tutorial. I was able to play through it and win consistently with the starter cards. I understood why extra damage was being dealt by Pyrotechnique, as the Firestarter badge adds +1 Damage to cards with that badge. His ally card would get shuffled in, which I saw with the Eager Freshman and pretty much each enemy. The Docile Bot was confusing because it had pretty much two cards in its deck, which was a completely different deck construction rule set than I could follow. This wasn’t a problem with this enemy as the allies pretty much beat him without any help, but it became a big source of frustration in issue 2.

After progressing fairly easily through issue 1, I moved onto issue 2 and faced a big spike in difficulty. The card quality of the opponents increased greatly through the issue. While the first few opponents were dispatched handily enough, the Grizzly bear gave me pause, and again, the frustration came mostly from the deck construction rule set being completely broken for the AI. When I faced Form and Function for the first time, they pretty much beat me in the first three turns, as they played an ally card three turns in a row, which not only allowed them to play multiple threats in a turn, but to have those threats deal 3x my best attack card (which was 2/0 the first time I fought him), with some damage unblockable, and to have 6 ally cards in a deck when I could only have 1, and with fairly consistent armor that was higher than my attack cards, the gameplay was ludicrously frustrating. And somehow the ally damage seemed to be boosted. Even with the ally being able to overcome the armor at times, there was basically nothing I could do. I tried again and found it much easier, and ended up moving past the three rounds, but that first overpowering proved not to be some random fluke.

Devonstrix can still beat me handily 8 or so levels later because somehow Dragon Punch does 15 damage. Again, I found an enemy with wildly different deck construction rules, with the whole deck essentially constructed from 3 different cards. With some luck we could beat her, but getting decked for 15 without being able to understand where the damage came from was extremely frustrating. While her AI will switch targets when someone gets low, the fact remains that you only have a few threats left to play and she has slight armor and a lot of recovery, and the ally is seldom doing damage.

And don’t even get me started on the dogs. When your opponent has shields equal to or greater than 90% of your cards it’s not even possible to win. I gave up trying to progress through the storyline because not only is the Cash:XP:Energy ratio constant, but most of the forge rewards will be obsolete like all of the cards you start with. When I learned that there was no benefit in facing tougher battles, like you said, I realized that not just for Kongregate badge seekers but for any new player the best option is to grind the first issue until you are level 50 (or 100+) I kind of felt the existence of other game content was philosophical in nature.

On top of that, if I don’t level in a play session, The energy lasts me somewhere around 10-15 minutes of game play. I have played several games with energy and usually you can get double to quadruple that amount of play time, and again, in several games when you level your energy refreshes and you can game for much longer sessions. The benefit to that is that you can become invested in a game. I can’t become invested in a game that provides less entertainment per visit than a sitcom without commercials. My favorite CCG was the Cthulu/Lovecraft based one, where I don’t recall energy being a restriction, and collecting powerful cards and beating more powerful opponents was enough to keep me coming back for more. Tyrant you could play for hours it seemed. Kingdoms is equally sucky, but at least the PvP was something you could participate in. In this game, the biggest drawbacks for new players are the inability to play, the inability to progress, the inability to participate in PvP, and the cards you get becoming obsolete because they are just so underpowered. This is a nice and helpful essay on how to enjoy the game as it is, but it doesn’t remove these fundamental design flaws. Please don’t think that the people complaining about these things are playing their first game.

Some things that could be done to minimize the frustration is to have multiple arenas for PvP duels with level caps within a range of 10. Even if the matching system improves after level 100 or so, it can literally take months to get to that point. Also, stating recommended levels on issues would help new players like me to avoid being overmatched. A third improvement would be to increase the $:XP:Energy ratios on harder missions. A fourth would be to balance the cards so that you improve your deck less through card quality and more through card synergy and strategy.

Dragonalx, I disagree with the reason you cite for the energy mechanic. If a PvP game fails to hook me for the long run, the energy mechanic won’t help.

The real reason is that without the energy mechanic, people using bots to grind would be at a disparate advantage against people who don’t – you’d just set a bot to get yourself up to level 100 before you started playing in earnest.

Your badging advice is sound; I’d recommend playing issue 1 and 2 as these can be completed with help of the cards from the “money” packs; I got stuck on issue 3. I would recommend badge seekers to save up some skill points and get the autopilot skill (scroll down), this helps greatly to remove the annoyance from grinding, and since you’re not planning on playing the harder issues, you don’t really need to upgrade your deck limits (except maybe for deck size).

I’d tell any new player interested in playing for a longer period of time to avoid the Acolyte specialty. It’s practically worthless. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a situation, outside of drafts (where you get to pick your badge setup for each draft independent of your character’s class anyway,) where my Acolyte class made any significant difference to the outcome of my matches. Have I banished a few allies here and there? Well, yes, I suppose I have done that. In PvE that matters not at all, because the AI never has just one ally that needs negating. In PvP, ally play isn’t widespread or threatening enough for it to matter, especially not with Neighborhood Watch all over the place.

Meanwhile, FS and Nonstop especially have abilities that, when they proc, can be absolute game-changers – and they synergize extremely well with some high-powered cards and high-powered gear, whereas the Acolyte badge never really does.

So, I’ve got a question- I’ve been playing for a little while and have a level 40ish Acolyte. Is it worth spending the skill points to open up an FS? Should I just start everything over? What’re your thoughts?

If you’re only level 40, I’d recommend it. It’s going to hurt a bit, and without spending LC you won’t ever be getting your Acolyte badge points back. Still, any points you’ve spent on Shared Skills aren’t lost, and the difference between FS and Acolyte at higher levels/decks is just… well, it’s pretty significant. You have to remember that you’re not just getting a better primary badge. You’re also getting much more useful secondary badges.

Granted, it won’t seem like a huge difference to you if you manage to get a few of the most ridiculous epic/legendary cards, but all of the double damage and crits really do add up, even if you don’t remember them because you’re still reminiscing about the 625 damage that one guy did with Painful Memories in that brawl that one time.

I changed-over from an Acolyte setup to Strongharm and I noticed that no one had anything to say about the Strongharm-badges. Can anyone give their opinion on this? Was it a decent choice?

I did this at around Lv 48 and I noticed a big change after that as most enemies started to get easier and I was able to beat up alot of characters even with their shields and bonuses on. On top of that I have Leveled up to Lv 70 and reached Issue 6 in a week’s time.

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